


If Wishes Were Horses

by melospiza



Category: Seabiscuit (2003)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 22:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1758241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melospiza/pseuds/melospiza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a hot afternoon in Tijuana, George and Red have a talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Wishes Were Horses

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://hannahrorlove.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://hannahrorlove.livejournal.com/)**hannahrorlove** 's Easter egg. The prompts were dust, downtown, and dizzy.

**TITLE:** If Wishes Were Horses  
 **SERIES:** _Seabiscuit_  
 **RATING:** PG-13  
 **CHAPTERS/ONE SHOT:** One Shot  
 **GENRE:** Gen  
 **PAIRING/S:** George/Red  
 **SUMMARY:** On a hot afternoon in Tijuana, George and Red have a talk.  
 **AUTHOR'S NOTES:**[](http://hannahrorlove.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://hannahrorlove.livejournal.com/) **hannahrorlove** 's Easter egg. The prompts were dust, downtown, and dizzy.  
 **DISCLAIMER:** This fic is based on the film and is not in any way intended to represent the lives of any real persons.

  
It was a hot, still afternoon in Tijuana that day, and the sky over the town was as flat and dull as the surface of an old dime. There weren’t a lot of people in the streets, as many of them had retreated inside to escape the heat. However, a cloud of dust hovered in the air over the racetrack, unmoving, torn up from the turf below by the churn of pounding hooves. The races didn’t stop for anything.

And by rights, Red Pollard should have been there, even though he wasn’t racing today. He should have been trackside, watching his competition, judging the jocks and their mounts in the hopes he would see one worse than him, one that he could beat. But he’d been tempted away by George Woolf, who had a devious sort of smile that always made you think he was up to something, even when he wasn’t.

Together they had meandered away from the track and down the main stretch of town, hands in their pockets, as idle as could be. George, the Iceman in more ways than one, seemed not to be bothered by the heat, even in his sportcoat. They nodded to folks as they passed and some even hailed George or patted him on the shoulder. Even if they didn’t know him by name -- which would have been surprising -- he was obviously a jockey, and jocks had been drawing money into this town ever since gambling had been banned in the ‘States.

They didn’t say anything to Red. He was bigger than George was, and on his face he wore a fresh black eye and a mean look. He didn’t look like a jockey.

It was a bit of a relief when they stepped off the street and into one of the pink-stucco hotels, but the view of the dusty racetrack from the second floor balcony only reminded Red of where he _should_ have been. He folded his arms on the railing and leaned against it, his hair ablaze in the sunlight, and was just beginning to consider asking George what the hell they were doing up here when the other man finally spoke.

“You want one?”

Red had to turn his head to see George was waving his cigarette case at him. Red shook his head and went back to staring fixedly at the racetrack.

There was a soft _snik_ of a matchhead scraping its box, and then George stepped closer to the balcony, pitching the spent match over its edge. He took a slow drag from his cigarette before leaning against the balcony as well, the railing against his back with his elbow propped against it.

“Why did we come up here?” Red asked.

“Why not?” A long stream of smoke punctuated the lazy tone of George’s words, and then he began blowing smoke rings toward the roof above them.

“What are we doing out here, dammit? Did you want to talk, or what?” There was a trace of irritation in Red’s voice. He hadn’t thought he would need to remind George that not everyone was so good they didn’t need to suss up the competition before a race.

“Yes, I wanted to talk,” George replied. But he didn’t seem to want to do it any time soon as he considered smoking the cigarette in silence. Only after several more moments of silence did he speak again, saying, “Where in the world would you most like to go?”

Red was taken aback by the question. “What?” he asked.

“Where in the world would you most like to go?” George said again. “You always tell the other boys those stories about racing Arabians for sultans and that. Would you do it if you could? If not, where would you go?”

Red glanced at George, and then away, the hard expression he had been wearing softened in the sunlight like butter.

“I wouldn’t go race Arabians,” he mumbled. “I’d go… Never mind. It’s silly.”

“No, tell me. I’m curious,” George said, shifting closer to him. He flicked the cigarette ash over the edge of the balcony before turning to mirror Red’s pose.

Red sighed. His gaze was fixed now on the horizon, and the track wasn’t even on his periphery.

“I’d go find my parents,” he said. And then he huffed out a short, mirthless laugh. “But if I _did_ find them, I don’t know if I’d hug them or if I’d punch them for never writing to me.”

George stared at Red’s profile, but the other man couldn’t see the sympathetic look on George’s face. When Red finally glanced back at George, the dark-haired jockey was smoking again.

“You could do both,” George offered casually. “Punch your father and hug your mother.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” Red mumbled. “But what about you? Where would you go?”

“I don’t know.” George shrugged. He studied his cigarette for a moment as if it were some foreign object. “Maybe I’d go race those horses in Arabia.”

“Is that really all you’d want to do?” Red asked, his brows lifting.

“No,” George admitted. “But what else could I do? People think I’m such a bigshot, but really horses are all I have.”

Red leaned heavily against the railing again, letting his eyes go back to the racetrack. It was starting to get late. A good number of the three-year-olds would have raced at this point, and he’d been deprived of seeing how they and their riders handled the heat. He had to admit, though, that it was nice being up here with George, where it was quiet. A thin cry drifted down to them from the open sky and both men looked up to watch some dark bird of prey turning slow circles over the scrublands beyond the town.

Quietly Red murmured, “Horses aren’t all you have, Georgie.”

George smiled at the pewter sky and the wheeling hawk and the sun-drenched desert. “I’ll remember that,” he said.

 


End file.
